of the motto of Ferdinand III (El Santo) (1199-1252), which roughly rendered into English would run: "Let your yea be yea, and your nay be nay." From this slender clue the Conde de Valencia endeavoured to prove that this sword blade, which in the old inventories figures as the Cid's renowned Colada, is no other than that sword blade of St. Ferdinand which the canonized monarch himself on his death-bed bequeathed to the Infante Manuel: "his Lobera sword, which was of great virtue, and by means of which God had greatly helped him." It has been ground and much cleaned; at the tang end its edge has been filed to a ricasso in order to adapt it to the hilt that was added by the Toledo sword-maker, Salvador de Avila, in the first quarter of the XVIth century.
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Fig. The sword of Saint Ferdinand (1199-1252)
G 22, Royal Armoury, Madrid
The allusion to this blade in the Royal Armoury of Madrid reminds us that it is in this armoury the next very important enriched sword of about the period with which we are now dealing is to be seen. The sword in question is one of the most splendidly enriched weapons of the first half of the XIIIth century that has been handed down to us (Fig. ). In the past it won reverence and renown as the sword of Roland, the famed Paladin of the VIIIth century, but as is the case of nearly all other famous swords, it has no rightful claim to the great antiquity with which it has been credited. We hardly need say it is not of the VIIIth century, but belongs to the early part of the XIIIth century. Being a weapon of this period, and possessing most distinctive Moorish features, the Conde de Valencia considered it likely to have been one of the swords of St. Ferdinand, and for this reason it was retained in the armoury. It is a long and very broad-bladed sword, having a flattened pommel that
